Names Council chair presentation to ICANN public
forum 27 June 2002 Bucharest

ICANN is not fundamentally flawed. The
principles upon which it today rests are the right ones. The EU
Council of Ministers said two weeks ago “Bottom-up
participation, transparency and consensus building should continue to
be the guiding principles of ICANN”. We agree.

We seek gradual change, evolution not
revolution. However all change will be useless unless two
conditions are first met.

Unless ICANN is allowed the
budget it needs, it will perform poorly.

Unless that funding allows for
staff support to policy development, policy development will be poor.

Other changes will be insufficient to
make a difference without action on these two enabling conditions of
success.

ICANN’s only real failure was the
quaaint hope of its founders that it would be OK to set up a board
with administrative staff support, but to leave the heart of its
mission - the all-important policy questions - to someone else. And
to offer them no help at all. Go off, self organise and tell us when
you have found the answer to ending cyberpiracy in the world, and to
introducing competition on a global scale in a meaningful way.

Concretely then, let me summarise the
key NC recommendations which will lead to an ICANN that functions
better, outreaches better, performs better and is liked better.

Funding is key. The ICANN budget
approval process should be independent of those who administer
ICANN funding. Core funding should ultimately derive from the
revenues of gTLD Registrants' fees.

Support. That funding should
provide full-time staff to support all aspects of policy making
including a co-ordinating secretariat and staff support to
policy-making task forces.

That will make the new DNSO quick to
respond to Board need, effective in outreaching to its internal
stakeholders, and an instrument to outreach to external interested
parties. Policy development staff is the enabler of bottom-up
consensus policy making.

Policy bodies. There should be
four policy development bodies. gTLDS, ccTLDs, addressing, protocols.
Those bodies need self-determination. They should select their own
steering councils and they should select their own chair.

There should be better stakeholders
interaction within the new gTLD policy development body. A reformed
general assembly should embrace those stakeholders uniquely and thus
be a forum for broad cross-constituency consensus building. Policy
development staff will enable this.

And what of those who are not direct
stakeholder participants in the new gTLD policy development body?
They must be given new means of participation in policy development
with improved consultation via e-mail based input mechanisms for
individuals and the interested public. Policy development staff
will enable this.

What is more those four policy
development bodies (gTLDS, ccTLDs, addressing, protocols) should
elect around half the Board.

Rest of Board Around the same
number should be chosen by a 15 person selection committee comprising
equally of providers, users and public interests.

Add a voting ICANN CEO and your board
is complete and probably numbers around 17. And there should be no
further role for a selection committee. Getting that job right is
challenge enough.

Advisory bodies. The Board
should have as many technical advisory committees as it wants
but according to need. These committees should liase with the board
but not provide board members. To do so would limit the creation of
future technical advisory bodies.

Government Governments should
not have and we understand do not seek voting Board representation.
There should be better liaison between the GAC and the policy
development bodies. Policy development staff will enable this.

How does this compare with the recent
Blueprint from the Board’s committee? Pretty well – and
we hope we have given you a few refinements to that blueprint to
consider. And that blueprint and our refinements are all the fix we
need. Thank you for your attention.